"The home phone has had no dial tone since the broadband engineer came, and Mum's alarm box keeps blinking." That is the landline switch off arriving early. Providers are moving every UK line from copper to Digital Voice, and kit built for copper can fail quietly. Check in this order: the plug, the power, then the provider.
Start at the wall. A BT-style plug or small RJ11 jack means the device leans on copper and is at risk. A wider RJ45 plug means it already uses broadband. A power lead alone usually means a built-in SIM, which the change leaves alone. HomeCareGuardian's August 2026 telecare guide uses the same test.
Anything still using the copper line stops connecting after 31 January 2027, so test your alarms and phone now, not when a letter arrives.
- A BT plug or RJ11 jack means copper; RJ45 or a built-in SIM is usually safe.
- Providers must confirm a telecare alarm works before moving that home, so tell them the alarm exists.
- Digital Voice does not need full fibre; treat any upgrade sold as mandatory as an upsell.
- A router-fed phone goes quiet soon after a power cut, so keep a mobile charged.
Why does the landline switch off break working kit?
Digital Voice carries your calls as internet data through the router, so anything that expects the old copper line's signal or its power, such as older burglar alarms and telecare units, can lose its connection without any warning light.
Copper carried a small current of its own, which is why a corded phone worked through a storm. Digital Voice sends the call as data through the router, and the router needs mains power. Uswitch's explainer, updated August 2026, lists burglar alarms, CCTV, card terminals and telecare among affected kit, and confirms full fibre is not needed: ordinary broadband, SOGEA included, carries the calls. So the router is now your phone socket, and its power matters more than its speed (our comparison of Wi-Fi 7 and Wi-Fi 6E home routers covers speed).
The weak link is paperwork, not technology. Providers are meant to find vulnerable customers before moving them, and they miss some, as Ofcom's December 2025 penalty on Virgin Media and an August 2025 Which? survey of telecare firms show. The time figure below is our own count of days to the cutoff.
Days Left to Test
125 days
Start this weekend, not January
Ofcom Fine on Virgin Media
£23.8m
Providers can miss your alarm
Telecare Users Virgin Had to Trace
42,991
Missed by one provider alone
Telecare Firms Selling Analogue-Only
3 in 7
Check before buying any alarm
If you are shopping for a parent, act on the Which? finding: get the seller to confirm in writing that the alarm works on Digital Voice or has its own SIM. The same habit applies to any connected gadget, as our look at what works and what still breaks in Matter smart homes found.
A provider big enough to earn an eight-figure fine still lost track of telecare customers. Assume yours has not spotted your alarm until you say so.
Copper line vs Digital Voice: what changes at home
Digital Voice keeps your number and your handset but moves the dependency from the copper line to your router, so plug type, power and the telecare rules decide whether each device keeps working after the cutoff.
Left column: the question. Middle: how each network handles it. Right: what to do. Rows run from cost to risk.
| Dimension | Copper vs Digital Voice | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| 💰 What you need | Copper A copper voice line Digital Voice Any broadband, SOGEA too |
✅ No full fibre contract to buy |
| ⏱ Deadline | Copper Ends 31 Jan 2027 Digital Voice Default for every line |
⚠️ About 18 weeks left to test kit |
| 📊 Plug check | Copper BT plug or RJ11 at risk Digital Voice RJ45 or SIM-only is fine |
✅ Sorts each device in a minute |
| 🔋 Power cut | Copper Line powers a corded phone Digital Voice Ofcom floor: 1 hour for 999 |
❌ Longer cuts need a charged mobile |
| ⚖️ Telecare rights | Copper Nothing to arrange Digital Voice No move until alarm works |
✅ You can hold your own migration |
| 🛠 Other kit | Copper Dial-out alarms, card readers Digital Voice Needs an IP or 4G SIM model |
⚠️ Ask each maker, not your ISP |
| 🏁 Best suited for | Copper Nobody after the cutoff Digital Voice Kit that passed the plug test |
🏁 Anyone who has run the checks above |
All ticks and you are done. One cross, usually the power-cut row, means a router battery pack or a mobile kept charged, both far cheaper than a panic engineer visit in the final week.
If an alarm in your family comes through a housing provider, assume it is not upgraded yet: two in three providers do not expect to finish before the cutoff. Source: Housing LIN and Appello survey, February 2026, via HomeCareGuardian; the middle and right bands are our derivation from its one-third forecast.
What happens to my phone in a power cut on Digital Voice?
Your home phone stops working once the router loses power, unless the router has battery backup, and Ofcom only requires providers to offer enough backup for a short spell of emergency calls, not a night without electricity.
The GOV.UK Telecare National Action Plan, published February 2025, says analogue telecare units typically run 12 to 24 hours on their own battery, and alarms without one fail in a power cut outright. But on Digital Voice that battery only counts while the router is alive, so a unit good for a day goes deaf when the hub does. That is our reading of the two rules together, and it puts the backup question on the router.
The plan's Charter says providers will not migrate a telecare user until "a compatible and functioning telecare solution" is confirmed. My view: sound on paper, but only if the provider knows the alarm exists. Tell them yourself (or, more accurately, get whoever pays the bill to), and if brushed off, call Ofcom on 0300 123 3333. Then check any reassuring letter, as you would when verifying Windows 10 ESU enrolment.
- A burglar alarm that dials out over the phone line: ask the installer for an IP or SIM communicator.
- A router on a timer plug or an extension lead that gets switched off at night.
- Sheltered or social housing: the landlord usually owns the alarm, so ask them for the upgrade date.
Key takeaways to act on: you are ready when all of these are true
- Every device you rely on plugs into the router, uses an RJ45 socket or runs on its own SIM.
- Your provider has confirmed in writing that it knows about any telecare alarm in the home.
- You know where a charged mobile is if the power goes at night.
- If you rent, your landlord has given you a date for the alarm upgrade.
This weekend, do the plug test on every device, then phone your provider with two questions: your migration date, and whether a telecare alarm is flagged on your account. If the second answer is no, the job is yours.
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